For the love of reading

The wee ones sitting on low benches are a captive audience despite all the distracting rows of shelves full of toys and books around them.

Jo Ann Kirby

The wee ones sitting on low benches are a captive audience despite all the distracting rows of shelves full of toys and books around them.

They are singing the nursery rhyme "Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed."

You know how it goes - one fell off and bumped his head.

"Do you jump on the bed?" asks Dorothy Maas, the storyteller at Barnes & Noble bookstore at Weberstown Mall on Pacific Avenue in Stockton. "No, you could get hurt."

One little boy can totally relate.

"I did that once," he yells.

The bookstore offers story hour at 11 a.m. Thursdays and Saturdays in its kids' department.

Maas, who retired as children's librarian from the Lodi Public Library in 2000, reads several stories to the dozens of tots gathered on a recent Thursday.

One she will read from the Nook tablet and others from hardcover storybooks.

Then she does a short little puppet show.

"We want to encourage a love of reading," Maas said. "It's also a way to bring people into the store and introduce them to what we have here."

Maas tells the parents and grandparents about the store's Kids Club, which offers discounts, rewards and a birthday treat.

Around holidays, story hour features a fun activity.

"We are doing a Valentine's Day celebration a little early," Margaret Sacchet, community relations manager at the book store, said of today's activity at Barnes & Noble. "We will have our 11 a.m. story hour and then from noon to 7 p.m., anyone who purchases a cupcake in our cafe can decorate it with sprinkles and frosting we provide."

For families with toddlers, local story hours - many are held at public libraries - are a fun and educational way to pass some time.

"I used to come with my granddaughter years ago and now my grandson is old enough to come," Linda McAllister said as she watched Spencer McAllister, 5, tell his grandfather that he'd like to go to the Children's Museum next. "It's so good for them to learn to sit and listen to a story and then to get to socialize with the others."